Michael Rodwell (credited as "
Intruder" in his first appearance), played by former
Family Fortunes presenter
Les Dennis, made his first screen appearance on 24 March 2014. The character and Dennis' casting were announced on 23 January 2014. On 19 July 2016, it was announced that Dennis would be leaving the show later in the year to pursue other projects and that "Michael will have a dramatic exit". In August 2017, Dennis was longlisted for Best Exit at the
Inside Soap Awards. Michael first appears in
Gail McIntyre's (
Helen Worth) house, pretending to be a gas man, who has come to the house to look at the "gas leak". He is revealed as a burglar and pushes Gail, causing her to fall over and her daughter-in-law
Kylie Platt (
Paula Lane) chases him out of the street, but he gets into his van and drives off, with
Fiz Stape (
Jennie McAlpine) failing to read his number plate as he drives away. Gail starts to become anxious when she is home alone due to the burglary and is helped by her son
David Platt (
Jack P. Shepherd), Kylie and mother
Audrey Roberts (
Sue Nicholls). Weeks later, Gail visits Michael in prison to ask him about why he tried to burgle her house. They gradually grow close and she begins to stick up for him in front of David and Kylie. Michael gets a job at a local garden centre, until he is sacked after Kylie and David interfere with his work by telling the garden centre manager about Michael's criminal past. Although the manager knew this, he still sacks Michael after Kylie causes a scene. The next day, Gail takes Michael to StreetCars and helps him get a job there, after he somewhat impresses
Eileen Grimshaw (
Sue Cleaver) and
Steve McDonald (
Simon Gregson). He is due to start work the next day, but David and Gail's eldest son
Nick Tilsley (
Ben Price) go to his flat and threaten him and tell him not to come back to Weatherfield and attempt to contact their mother ever again or go to work at Street Cars. Gail asks after him at the cab office, and co-owner
Lloyd Mullaney (
Craig Charles) tells her that Michael didn't turn up. Not knowing why Michael didn't turn up, Gail then visits the flat and demands that Michael apologise to Lloyd and Steve for letting them down. Reluctantly, he lies and says that working so close to her would be too much for him, as he has feelings for her. Gail then leaves the flat, sad that Michael feels that way. The day after, Nick accidentally lets slip that he knows where Michael is living, and Gail visits Michael again. Michael admits that Nick and David threatened him, and agrees to go to work the next morning, while Gail promises to sort her sons out. Steve then agrees to give Michael another chance. To show his gratitude towards Gail, Michael buys the Platts a new television, after Kylie's young son
Max Turner (Harry McDermott) destroyed their last one. He tells Gail that the TV cost £200, but when David later looks up the price on the internet, it says that it costs £420. David then tries to convince Gail that Michael stole money in order to buy the television, but Gail will not listen to him. Michael then produces the receipt, proving he did buy the television, and also shows them a solicitors letter to prove where he got the money, after he received it from a deceased aunt's estate. David remains sceptical, but his suspicions are soon eclipsed by his much greater concerns about his sworn enemy: Max's biological father
Callum Logan (Sean Ward). When Michael is sent a photo album of his son
Gavin's (Mark Holgate), childhood by Gavin's mother and his ex-wife,
Susan Meldrum (Meriel Scholfield), Gail tries to stop him from looking at the photo with help from Gavin's friend
Andy Carver (
Oliver Farnworth) - who is impersonating Gavin; however, they fail in this and Michael soon realizes that Andy isn't the real Gavin. Gail tells him that his real son has died in a
car accident followed by a
Heart Attack . Hurt and upset, Michael leaves Gail and temporarily lives at Eileen's house, much to the dismay of Gail, until a drunken kiss from Michael to Eileen leaves him collapsing and taken to hospital. Despite trying to keep their relationship a secret from Gail, Michael soon confesses leading to a fight on the street between Eileen and Gail. Unable to forgive Gail for keeping Andy and his son's death a secret, he later demands a divorce. Michael and Eileen later split up, and she begins a relationship with local builder
Pat Phelan (
Connor McIntyre). After a short absence from the street, Michael returns in July and reconciles with Gail. In mid-November, Michael learns that Phelan - whom he had been clashing with ever since he knew that Phelan had been wooing Eileen in an attempt to steal her from him - and his crooked business partner
Vinny Ashford (
Ian Kelsey) have been scamming the residents of Weatherfield over the last few months. On the day Eileen accepts Phelan's proposal, Michael seeks the help from Gail's neighbour
Anna Windass (
Debbie Rush) - who too resents Phelan; back when Michael first appeared on the street in 2014, Phelan raped Anna by blackmailing her into sleeping with him - which she reluctantly agreed to do in order to prevent Phelan for tormenting her son
Gary Windass (
Mikey North) and ex-boyfriend
Owen Armstrong (
Ian Puleston-Davies) during their disastrous business partnership. Anna initially refuses to help Michael as she wants nothing to do with Phelan, but later discovers the scam herself after unwittingly seizing Phelan's phone from her adoptive daughter
Faye Windass (
Ellie Leach). Working together against their shared enemy, Anna invites Phelan to her house to stall him so that Michael could infiltrate his office to obtain evidence against him. While Anna tries unsuccessfully to bribe Phelan in leaving Weatherfield, Michael heads down to the site office and extracts Phelan's fake passport for his getaway escape. Just as Michael is about to leave with the evidence, however, Phelan arrives at the last second with a crowbar. Michael tauntingly dismisses Phelan's theory that he could phone the police to have him arrested for breaking and entering, as Michael has already gotten proof that Phelan's "Calcutta Street" project is actually a scam, but the situation quickly grows tense when Phelan makes it clear to Michael that he now intents to kill him. After failing to persuade Phelan in giving himself up to the police, Michael throws a chair at him to escape. He makes a break for the exit just as Phelan gives chase, but Michael suddenly stops and ends up having another heart attack in front of Phelan - who coldly refuses to help him as he did once before. Meanwhile, Anna alerts her Gary of the situation and he heads down to confront Phelan, but does not notice a dying Michael succumbing to his heart attack and taking his last breath. Gail attempts to ring him, but it's too late - as Michael has died. Once all is settled, Phelan later finds Michael dead and silently bids him goodbye with a sign of the cross before walking away from his lifeless body. Eileen's son
Todd Grimshaw (
Bruno Langley) discovers Michael's body the following day. Michael is cremated off screen, and Gail scatters his ashes into a pond near to where they were planning to renew their vows. As time went on without Michael following his passing, Andy correctly suspected Phelan's role in his death and tried in vain to expose this – but was consequently abducted and locked in a cellar of Phelan and Eileen's would-be new home for nearly the entirety of 2017; this ultimately ended with Phelan killing Andy after forcing him to execute Vinny, whom Andy – in his last moments – was manipulated into believing was responsible for Michael's death, not Phelan. In March 2018, just two months after Phelan had killed Andy's best friend
Luke Britton (Dean Fagan) for gradually uncovering the true circumstances of the latter's "disappearance" – thus preventing Luke from having the possibility of finding out the truth about both Michael and Vinny as well – Eileen would learn that Michael was right about Phelan's involvement in his "Calcutta Street" flats scam development upon overhearing his confession during his argument with Michael's best-friend and co-worker:
Tim Metcalfe (
Joe Duttine) – who himself, along with Anna and Gary, had correctly suspected Phelan's role in Michael's death. A few weeks later, the truth was eventually revealed when Gary and his sister's boyfriend
Seb Franklin (Harry Visinoni) had unknowingly unearthed the bodies of Andy and Vinny during their attempt to uncover the gun that Phelan used to kill Luke. When Eileen discovers this and confronts Phelan in response, he confessed to watching Michael die of a heart attack - before going on to emulate the rest of his crimes. The following morning, Gail and her family were informed about Phelan causing Michael's death by the time his crimes became public knowledge in Weatherfield. Michael's death would soon be avenged when Phelan is killed by Anna at the conclusion of his lethal siege, during which he shot his own daughter
Nicola Rubinstein (
Nicola Thorp) and her neighbor
Michelle Connor (
Kym Marsh) - prior to the latter marrying her fiancé and co-restaurant owner
Robert Preston (
Tristan Gemmill). Ironically, Phelan dies in the same way as Michael had died - with Anna and the rest of the street watching Phelan die without aiding him, more likely in retribution for Michael's death. ==Neil Beckett==